EMC plans to bring out data classification system

26.06.2006
EMC Corp. late this year plans to ship data classification software that initially will work with unstructured information and eventually support databases as well, a company executive said last week.

George Symons, EMC's chief technology officer for information management, didn't divulge the details of how the data classification offering will be packaged. But he indicated that it would ship in the fourth quarter and include technology gained from EMC's acquisitions of vendors such as Legato Systems Inc., Documentum Inc. and Smarts Inc. Data classification software lets storage administrators set up policies so that data is automatically categorized by its importance and then stored using a hierarchical storage management scheme. Critical data is assigned to high-end storage devices, and less important and infrequently accessed information is relegated to slower, cheaper storage.

Two EMC users said they are looking forward to the new functionality, despite the lack of specifics on how the storage vendor plans to offer it.

John Halamka, CIO at Harvard Medical School and CareGroup Healthcare System in Boston, said he believes that a data classification offering from EMC can help his organizations maximize their storage investments. Halamka said he plans to be an early adopter of the EMC technology.

Kenneth J. Kucera, CIO at First National Bank of Omaha, said the bank will likely evaluate the technology, which he called a logical corollary to its tiered storage architecture.

EMC's plan to develop data classification software was first disclosed to analysts earlier this month by CEO Joe Tucci.